


A word we've only heard

by gross_batpanda



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Feelings, M/M, Masturbation, The high school AU you all secretly wanted, UST, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gross_batpanda/pseuds/gross_batpanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1955. New Windsor Academy For Boys. </p><p>Two weeks into the new term, Thomas Conway is summarily dismissed.</p><p>(Part 1 of an as yet unnamed series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A word we've only heard

The sounds of the late summer night surround them: wind sighs through leaves just beginning to lose their jewelled brightness, overlaid by the clamor of crickets and frogs and the occasional rustle of a squirrel bounding through the underbrush. 

The noise comes in handy, as Ben and Nathan are hardly perfectly silent, crouched in the bracken that fills out the treeline. 

_ "Ouch! Hale, that was my back!"  _

_ "Sorry, fuck. Oof, watch your elbows Tallmadge."  _

_ "You watch where you're putting your foot!"  _

_ "Shut up, shut up, I think that's him. Look."  _

Nathan doesn't bother pointing, because there's only one place Ben could possibly turn to stare.

Up the road, a pair of dim headlamps swerve suddenly into view. The two boys shrink back into the shadows, lest the light shine into their hideaway and give them away, but there's no point worrying. Conway's old brown DeSoto rattles down the lane, its lone occupant not visible in the stifling darkness. 

Ben's not sure what he was expecting. Some loud, dramatic exit? Some exclamatory denunciation of the headmaster's choice to send him packing, and at such a strange time? Ben's not sure. But he knows he expected more than...this. 

The news had passed through the dining hall like wildfire: Mr. Conway was getting cut loose, a mere two weeks after the start of term. There'd been a good deal of speculation at dinner that night as to the reason, though no theory seemed more plausible than any other. Was it about money? Was it personal? Conway was never anyone's favorite, but he always seemed, to Ben at least, one of them more lenient disciplinarians. Maybe he'd been caught stealing? McHenry had sworn that he had heard Washington hollering at Conway in his office, but nobody buys that part of the story.

Almost everyone put in their two cents, but it hadn't escaped Ben's notice that there were three or four boys who didn't participate in the discussion, but instead just kept their heads down, aimlessly pushing their food around their plates. 

Still, he appreciates the ready-made excuse to sneak out, to break the mind-numbing routine of homework and sneaking smokes and listening to the same records over and over before an early lights out. He feels like he can say things out here that he couldn't imagine saying in his and Nathan's cramped little dormitory. 

"Well," Nathan says, "that's it then. Should we head back?" 

Ben wants to say no. He likes it out here, likes the unpredictable noises that keep him on his guard, likes the smell of the cool, wet earth under their feet. But Nathan had started complaining almost as soon as they'd slipped out through the window and dashed across the grounds. The dew on the grass was soaking through his socks, there were cobwebs clinging to his arms, it was  _ cold _ and Ben hadn't reminded him to bring his sweater. Ben's honestly not entirely sure what had compelled him to come along in the first place. 

"Yeah, we can go back. If you want," says Ben. Nathan sighs, relieved, and they turn around towards the dormitory. 

Up ahead of them, Ben can see the dark outline of the school looming over the sloped lawns and scattered trees of the grounds. It's well past lights-out, and later than most of the teacher's stay up. But there's still one lone illuminated window that looks out over the winding drive that leads toward the highway. He thinks he sees half a silhouette in the window frame, but it could just be a trick of the light. Nothing moves. 

Their path takes them along the treeline for a bit, before they have to cut into the woods again. The moon is really too bright for them to venture out from the shadows of the low-hanging branches any sooner than they have to. Ben chalks it up to how tired he is at the end of the long week, or the fading adrenaline of being out of bounds, but Nathan's skin seems to shine in the white light. It glints off his hair and his teeth and the lenses of his glasses. He looks like one of those wood spirits they've read about in Greek, wild and a little wicked. It takes him a moment to realize why he makes the immediate association. 

"You have a twig in your hair," says Ben with a chuckle. Nathan frowns, goes a little cross-eyed as he tries to look up at the top of his own head. Ben plucks the branch free, twirls it in his nimble fingers. 

"You sure you don't wanna stay out a little longer?" Ben asks. 

"We should really go back to bed," Nathan says, even though tomorrow is Saturday and they should be perfectly capable of sneaking in a nap or two if they should need it. 

"Why, you getting sleepy Hale?" Ben teases. 

"Get bent," Nathan snaps. But Ben doesn't push any further, and they keep walking. 

They have to go down into a gully and cross over a little rill to get back to their side of the building. Nathan takes his hand to get over the narrow stream, Ben yielding to his insistence that it's not safe for him to make the crossing unassisted. Ben clambers over to the other side and waits for him to let go first. They take a few awkward steps hand-in-hand after reaching level ground, but eventually Nathan draws away. Ben's hand clenches into a fist at his side, unseen. 

* * *

Saturday is a blur of books. Sunday, of morning chapel and rugby practice.

Ben's on edge all day, for whatever reason. In the shower after practice he lingers long after the rest of the boys exit the locker room, until the water runs lukewarm. He rolls his shoulders back, tries to collect himself. 

He tries to think about the girls in the magazines that Meade stashes in the bottom of his sock drawer; pouty red lips and dark eyes, contorted in what Ben supposes must be considered by some to be alluring positions. 

He'd used to imagine what it would be like to have a girlfriend, one who was daring enough to sneak into the woods around school to meet him late at night, who would kiss him up against a tree, push an unabashed hand down the front of his pajama bottoms. It's enough to get him started, but the delicate moue of her painted mouth is replaced in Ben's mind with a set of unadorned lips closing around the spout of a water bottle. Her long, dexterous fingers with their red-varnished nails become blunt-tipped hands drumming a ballpoint pen against an open book. The girl in his head gets on her knees, moans around his cock, but the sound of her voice is all wrong: pitched low, rough and familiar.

Ben bites down on the back of his hand when he finishes, then hastens out of the shower and into a towel. He practically tears down the hallway, suddenly aware of how long it had taken him to get about his business. 

He shoulders his way through the door to their room, and freezes. 

The lights are off. Nathan is in his own bed, turned to face the wall. But there's no mistaking the rustle of bedclothes, the choked-off moan that Nathan swallows as soon as he realizes Ben's opened the door. 

Ben's breath hitches. He does the only thing he can do: dresses quietly, carefully, without turning on the lights, lets Nathan maintain the fiction of sleep. He slips under the covers, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, unable to will himself into unconsciousness, unable  _ not _ to listen. 

A few minutes pass. Maybe half an hour, maybe less. But Ben ruthlessly modulates his breathing, keeps perfectly, painfully still. Hoping. 

From the other side of the room, he hears it: the squeak of the mattress, the slide of Nathan's hand moving under the sheets. Ben bites down on the inside of his cheek, his eyes fluttering shut. He does not move. 

* * *

By the time he wakes on Monday morning, Nathan is already dressed and hunched over his desk, scratching away at his Latin homework. His pen stalls for a moment as Ben slips out of his pajamas and into his uniform, the sound of his belt sliding through the loops on his trousers impossibly loud in the little room.

They go down to breakfast, and Ben thinks that maybe the rest of their day will be normal, but Nathan takes his plate to a different table than their usual, going to sit with some other members of the rugby team that Ben has never really gotten on with. Ben feels his own appetite wither away. 

He still feels sleepy and slow when he trudges into history class, eyes cat down at his shuffling feet. It's only when he takes his assigned seat at the front of the class that he looks up and sees...Professor Washington, stern and still, one hand resting on the lectern and the other in his trouser pocket, posed like a painting. 

Ben is suddenly intensely aware of his own posture, of the wrinkles in his dress shirt, the loose knot of his tie. 

Washington is silent as the rest of the students file in, the level of general chatter dropping off precipitously as soon as everyone sees who is standing at the front of the room. He waits until every member of the class is in their seat and the room is silent as a tomb before he speaks. 

"As some of you may already be aware, Professor Conway will be unable to teach this course for the remainder of the year." 

He pauses, as though daring one of their number to ask right out if it was true Conway had been fired, if it was true that he had done it in a window-shaking outburst of temper. No one makes a sound. Ben might be imagining it, but he thinks that Washington looks the slightest bit pleased. 

"That being the case," Washington continues, "this course will be covered by several other faculty including myself, until such a time as a replacement can be found. I trust that we shall have no trouble?" 

"No sir," says the class in perfect chorus. 

"Very good," he says. Ben sits up a little straighter. 


End file.
